Rochester City Council President, the Honorable Lovely A. Warren, Esquire: "OUR time is NOW!"

A few months ago, Rochester’s mayoral election of 2013 looked like it was going to be a very dull affair.

Nobody believed that the current mayor wouldn’t run again, despite an underwhelming lack of accomplishment during his brief tenure. Everyone suspected that perpetual Green Party candidate Alex White would run again.

In our one-party, Democratically monopolized city, this would have guaranteed that Tom Richards would win the election.

Given that dismal possibility, I was looking forward to the Broadway musical “Wicked” coming back to Rochester.

Most people know the basic story of “Wicked.” It is a different retelling of “The Wizard of Oz,” from the point of view of its two most famous witches: Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, and Elphaba, the “Wicked” Witch of the West.

A lot was going on in Oz before Dorothy dropped in!

Glinda and Elphaba were roommates at a witches’ boarding school in Oz. Elphaba was an outcast because of the color of her skin ( green ), although Glinda eventually befriends her. Elphaba’s excellent performance at school lands her the position of assistant to the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. There, she discovers something is rotten in the Land of Oz. Elphaba is warned NOT to reveal it, but she plans to do so anyway. This evokes the wrath of the Wizard and his underlings, who seek to stop her.

For the rest of the story, you had better purchase tickets to see the show, now on sale at the Auditorium Theatre.

However, when Rochester City Council President, the Honorable Lovely A. Warren, Esquire announced several months ago that she was considering her options to run for mayor this year, it dawned on me how “Wicked” was a case of art imitating life…or the 2013 mayoral race was a case of life imitating art!

Immediately upon her announcement in January, former mayor and current lieutenant governor Bob Duffy sternly admonished Lovely NOT to run, promising his support in a future mayoral race.

Shades of the wicked Wizard of Oz.

And, like Elphaba, Lovely refused to back down.

On Wednesday, March 20, Lovely announced to the Eastside Democrats her intention to run for mayor of Rochester.

Today, March 22, Lovely made her formal public announcement and press conference.

Lovely’s choice of venue for this announcement was “Fight Village,” in the heart of the poorest of Rochester’s four quadrants: the northeast.

This was most appropriate. Almost fifty years ago, it was the scene of the riot of 1964. The ensuing carnage devastated the area north of the Central Railroad tracks, from which it still has not recovered.

There was no “Marshall Plan” to help rebuild the area. The northeast remains an area of poverty, crime and violence. Of helplessness, hopelessness and despair.

Lovely knows this only too well. She grew up in that neighborhood, and still lives there.

Eight years of the Duffy/Richards administration has brought no noticeable improvement to the area; it is doubtful that giving it another four years will provide any benefit whatsoever, especially since the Duffy/Richards administration has patently ignored the plight of the poorer neighborhoods and the neighborhoods “in transition,” which means “in decay.”

Lovely’s announcement today was played out to a standing room only, diverse crowd of Rochester’s concerned citizens. It began with a video of Lovely describing the glory of what Rochester was, the shameful state in which it currently finds itself, and her hopes for Rochester’s future.

When Lovely took the podium to the cheers of her supporters, her statements never made use of the word “I.” Lovely always stated “We,” that we must all work together to change our city for the better, that it cannot be done by one person, one group of persons and one party alone.

Lovely also stated that she had been told that “it isn’t my time now. But no, it’s OUR time now!”

We ought to look at Lovely with both awe and gratitude for taking on the controlling clique within Rochester’s Democratic machine and not letting them “fix” the election. She is finally attempting to put a stop to a situation that has gone on for far too long.

And Lovely knows what she is up against. Citygov’s administration is opposed to her because they have become accustomed to their high-paying salaries in return for their failure to turn Rochester around. Mayor Warren might find it necessary to sack the lot of them, a precedent set by former Mayor Duffy.

And then, some of the big wigs in Democratic machine are either employed by or connected to Citygov. They will also be opposed to Lovely as Mayor for the same reasons.

Some people have stated that Lovely is “inexperienced,” although she has had more experience in politics and government than either Duffy or Richards before they became Mayors of Rochester and Corporate Counsel, respectively. That is something the Duffy/Richards administration never cease to refrain from speaking about. And the results produced by the Duffy/Richards administration is nothing to brag about.

Of course, Lovely is aware of the mess that she will have to clean up as mayor: a deplorable school system, a high crime and violence rate and employment that is generally of the minimum wage variety and the poverty that results from too many “good” jobs leaving the area. But she is bright and energetic enough to think outside the box to provide solutions to them.

It won’t be easy, because these issues have been ignored for far too long by an administration that lives in wealthy neighborhoods far removed from the struggles of most Rochesterians.

And it’s time that we, the people, should start thinking outside of the box, too. What good is it to restore a mayor and an administration to power for four more years that has patently failed to resolve these issues for the last eight years? It makes no sense.

Lovely, bucking the system at last, does.

Lovely ought to use “Defying Gravity” from “Wicked” as her campaign song. To paraphrase a few lines from it: “No mayor, who ever is or was, is ever going to hold us down!”

Claude Bragdon's masterpiece: The New York Central Railway Station on Central Avenue

When most of my elderly relatives came to America as refugees after the Second World War, the old railway station on Central Avenue was the first thing they saw of Rochester. A large, majestic building designed by Claude Bragdon, it smacked of solidity, security and permanence. My family settled in the old German “Butterhole” neighborhood in Rochester ( St. Paul Street, Clinton and Joseph Avenues ) and saw the railway station on the bus to downtown Rochester ( when there was still a downtown Rochester worth taking the bus to go to ).

Appearances can be deceiving.

Before most of the family moved out of the old neighborhood ( after the 1964 riots, from which the neighborhood has never recovered ), half of the railway station was demolished, split right down the middle. Not only did it look like a ruin left over from post-World War II Europe, it looked downright tacky!

Eventually the remainder was demolished as well. A piece of Rochester’s history gone forever.

Not that Rochester ever owned the building. Many other historic buildings in Rochester were also being destroyed at that time, whether it was by intent through demolition to build something else on those sites, or by “accidental” fires that allowed for other development unhampered by structures that had national landmark status.

Oh, well.

Of course, Rochester still needed a railway station of sorts, for Amtrak, and it seemed practical to build it on the site of Bragdon’s masterpiece. But it didn’t seem practical to build something impressive or memorable in that part of the city. This was in the days when Rochester was still the economic powerhouse of the region, and when the dollar was still worth something.

So a “temporary” railway station was built on the site of the old one. It looks temporary, all right, and looks like it should be gracing a backwoods trailer park. But it was only meant to be temporary.

From the sublime to the ridiculous.

“Temporary” turned out to be 34 years!

There has been much talk in the last few years about developing an “intermodal” transportation hub here in Rochester, focusing on fast rail trains and buses. That makes perfectly good sense. Citygov is waiting to see whether or not the feds will approve this; according to the D&C, the decision should be made next month.

Of course, Rochester’s public bus system will not be part of this “intermodal plan.”

“Renaissance Square,” proposed by Republican County Executive Maggie Brooks ( who is now running for Congress ), featured an underground bus terminal at North Clinton Avenue and Mortimer Street, a mile south of the train station, the site of the proposed intermodal center. The whole debate over Ren Square brought life back into the concept of an intermodal plan.

Ren Square was shot down by the Democratic controlled City Council, for purely politically partisan reasons.

The next year, City Council approved building a new above-ground bus barn at North Clinton Avenue and Mortimer Street ( the same location as Ren Square’s proposed bus terminal! ) at the request of Rochester’s Democratic mayor.

Pure coincidence, right?

At any rate, Citygov has sought federal funds to build a “permanent” train station as the focal point for the new intermodal system, if the feds approve it. Citygov did get the money to have plans made for such a structure, and is seeking $20 million to get phase 1 of the project completed. The cost of phase 1 is estimated at $26 million. Where are we going to get the additional $6 million?

Just as an aside here: how long is “permanent” in Rochester, when “temporary” was 34 years?

Phase two, the completion of a second story to handle bus traffic ( NOT the local RGTA buses ) is estimated at costing $13 million.

And we all know that nothing involving government ever is completed within budget.

Supposedly, we will be getting a “sleeker version” of Bragdon’s work.

According to yesterday’s story in the D&C:

“We certainly can’t replicate or afford to reproduce the terracotta ceilings or
the extent that was a vaulted space,” said Jim Durfee, principal architect with
Bergmann Associates. Instead, the design borrows elements of the Bragdon Station
to “recall the glory days of rail travel and build them into a station that is
properly scaled.”

Yep, “properly scaled” down, to fit a declining city whose population is 150,000 fewer souls than when Bragdon’s masterpiece was torn down. And far fewer people use railways these days than they did even fifty years ago.

The proposed plan for the new railway station: Bragdon on a budget.

On the other hand, it’s better than what we have there now, which nobody has ever liked. At least it doesn’t look tacky.

And it’s cheaper than the Mortimer Street Bus Barn, which nobody other than politicians ever wanted at that site!

Contributors

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Rich Gardner has been writing about the history, culture and waterways of Upstate New York for years. His articles have appeared in U.S. and Canadian publications, and one book, Learning to Walk. He is an alumnus of Brighton High School and SUNY Geneseo. He operates Upstate Resume & Writing Service in Brighton and recently moved to Corn Hill, where he is already involved in community projects. "I enjoy the 'Aha!' moments of learning new things, conceptual and literal. City living is a great teacher."

Ken Warner grew up in Brockport and first experienced Rochester as a messenger boy for a law firm in Midtown Tower. He recently moved downtown into a loft on the 13th floor of the Temple Building with a view of the Liberty Poll and works in the Powers Building overlooking Rochester’s four corners as Executive Director for UNICON, an organization devoted to bringing economic development to the community. He hopes to use his Rochester Blog to share his observations from these unique views of downtown.